Weekends in Carolina (22 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY

T
HE
J
OLLY
G
REEN
Giant had been pressing down on Max’s shoulders for months. Maybe even years. There’d always been that force sinking her shoulder blades farther and farther into her lungs. First it had been the fear of moving to North Carolina and starting a farm. Then it had been Hank and his odious personality, combined with the fear that he’d realize she was a woman and decide he couldn’t lease to her. Feeling comfortable with Hank hadn’t pushed the weight fully away, though it had lightened the load a bit. But his death had sent the full force of the giant crashing back down on her shoulders.

Now as she stepped out of Trey’s car onto the gravel road that was hers, the giant was gone. His hands weren’t even resting on her shoulders waiting to push down again. Max still felt pressure, but the force was pushing her forward to the future rather than weighing her down.

She took in a deep breath, filling her lungs with
her
cool, clean air. On
her
farm. Her gravel. Her old farmhouse. Her falling-down barn and her own matching chicken coop. Her deep breath was intended to calm both her fears and her excitement; it didn’t work.

It had been clear early on that her Kickstarter would be fully funded, and since then everything else had moved so quickly. Even the mortgage-approval process had been smoother than she’d expected. And the avalanche, once started, wouldn’t slow for any doubts. It bowled right past and over her. In Trey’s visits since the Kickstarter launch, she hadn’t even had time to think about how signing the mortgage would end their relationship.

Hadn’t had time, or hadn’t wanted to?
No matter. Without the giant pressing down on her shoulders, the feeling of owning her own farm might carry her away off this earth.

Trey came around the car and took her hand. She let him lead her around all the other cars parked in
her
driveway. Honestly, she was never going to get sick of that particular possessive pronoun.

They walked hand in hand around the back of her house to where tents were set up. Kelly and Norma Jean were setting up the rented tables and chairs. The smell of smoke and pork filled the air. Garner had brought his pig cooker over in the back of his truck and was putting a final mop of sauce on the meat. There were two long tables lined end to end with plenty of empty space for all the barbecue that Garner would soon pronounce ready. Lois was laying out slaw, collard greens, cornbread, potato salad and corn pudding. And big jugs of sweet tea. Lois didn’t truck with alcohol.

Max’s stomach grumbled. “This looks fabulous.”

Trey’s hand was warm in hers. “Asking Aunt Lois to plan the party was a good idea, though I think the Christmas lights were Norma Jean’s idea.”

“I had great interns this summer.” They’d not only worked hard on the farm, they’d also become invested in the success of the Kickstarter and Max’s ability to buy the land. When Max had sent Norma Jean an email to thank her for all the help, she had said it was worth it because she was learning about hope through struggle. Norma Jean vowed that when she had a farm, she wouldn’t let small trials get her down.

Trey squeezed Max’s hand. “Even Sean?”

Max squeezed back. “Even Sean. While I had him, he was a good employee. And he taught me that I could feel sympathy without letting those feelings get in the way of the fact that I have to be the boss.” The crunch of tires on the gravel behind her made her turn around. A car she didn’t recognize was pulling into the drive. “I think that’s one of the Kickstarter funders. I hope they find the party worth their investment.”

He frowned at her words. “They didn’t donate money so that they could have a party. They donated so that you could have a farm.”

She opened her mouth to argue with him, but stopped when she saw the intent look on his face. He turned so that they were facing each other and put his hands on her shoulders. “This party is for you. I gave you a shitty bargain in a shitty farming year and you succeeded. You beat all your own expectations, no matter what mine were. You deserve a party.”

Seeing herself reflected in Trey’s eyes warmed her through to her fingers on the cold November night. In his eyes, she stood tall and fearless in the face of challenges. They both knew self-doubt did cartwheels in her head, but that mattered less than the fact that she didn’t let those doubts bust out. “Let’s go greet our guests. Maybe they’ll want a tour before it gets too dark.”

Their first Kickstarter guests were a couple that owned a music production company in Durham, and as soon as Max shook the woman’s hand, she knew who they were. Though the woman didn’t stop to talk like many of Max’s other customers, she came by the Patch’s table every weekend to buy some vegetables. At their indication that they wanted a tour, Max led them up to the tables to get something to drink first and the party was started.

When she returned from her tour, the party was in full swing. Kelly ran up to her to shake her hand in congratulations. Lois walked, but there was a wide smile on her face. Garner shook her hand, but didn’t say anything. Soon Kelly and Lois were followed by a host of Max’s friends and neighbors. People she’d met at Lois’s Sunday suppers. Other farmers from the market. Other Kickstarter donors. And her mom, who enveloped her in a warm patchouli hug and said, “I’m so proud of you.” The only thing that would make the evening better was if her father and brother were here. But she’d bought the farm ahead of schedule and they were still busy with their own farmwork.

Across the backyard, Max caught a glimpse of Trey, his smile wide and honest. He looked happy. He was on his father’s property—now
her
property—and he looked happy. Knowing he was here almost made up for her missing her father and brother.

* * *

T
REY
WAS
PUSHING
his empty plate away when Kelly sat down next to him. “I’m trying to eat for Sean, as well as for me,” his brother said with a gesture toward his full plate. Kelly’s second serving was larger than his first had been.

“Shouldn’t you be sneaking some vodka into your tea, then?” Trey had more he wanted to say, but picking a fight with his brother at Max’s party was in poor taste.

Kelly stopped eating to look at him, his fork halfway to his mouth. His brother cocked his head, pursed his lips and finally put the fork back down on his plate. “Didn’t Max tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Sean is in Wilmington at a rehab facility. They offer a program specifically for veterans that he’s participating in.” Kelly picked up his fork again, considered the pile of barbecue and then shoved it into his mouth.

“How did this happen?”

Kelly took a big gulp of his tea before answering Trey’s question. “Well, getting fired from the farm wasn’t rock bottom. Sean had to crawl back up a bit from getting fired and got back into regular AA meetings—and then he dived into rock bottom. I reached out to his mother and together we got him into the Wilmington program.” He scraped another pile of barbecue onto his fork. “Mrs. Yarnell really is a lovely woman, though her strident pacifism is hard on Sean.” Kelly shook his head as if not believing what he was about to say. “It was hard to have a homophobic father and be gay. Mrs. Yarnell is as welcoming as she can be about Sean’s sexuality, but she broke his heart by refusing contact with him when he joined the army. We all have our blind spots.”

“And...” Trey stopped, not certain what question he wanted to ask first. The things he had wanted to say when Kelly first sat down were still bouncing around in his head, but their tone was different. “Why have you stuck with him?” Apparently, the question was shocking enough for Kelly to stop chewing. His brother held up his hand in a gesture of patience as he tried to finish his bite, not surprisingly a huge effort given the pile of food that had been on the fork. “That’s what you get for taking such big bites,” Trey said with a snort.

When Kelly finally swallowed, he said, “Because I love him.”

“But...”

“But how could I love an alcoholic, especially after our father?”

Trey shrugged, fixing his gaze on some point past all the partygoers. He tried to pretend he wasn’t here on his father’s—now Max’s—farm, having this conversation, but the music, smells and chatter drew him back to the present. He scanned the people under the tent until his eyes caught Max, who was laughing with one of the Kickstarter guests. This land was hers now. The fall breeze ruffling her hair was blowing away the last bits of his father and Trey’s unhappy childhood. Not rebirth so much as new growth. Like Max’s treasured compost piles, the old, rotting waste was providing nutrients for something new and wholesome.

What had his aunt said?
You’re crazy about her and she’s crazy about you
. She hadn’t been wrong. She was almost never wrong, but she seemed to believe that Trey could be here without seeing his childhood in every tree and branch. Perhaps it was possible. Kelly’s childhood had been equally awful, though in a different way, and he’d managed to return to the farm. And as much as Trey accused otherwise, Kelly and Sean’s relationship was different than his parents’ relationship, lacking the victim and perpetrator edge.

Trey turned back to his brother. “Yes. That is exactly the question I don’t know the answer to.”

“We all have our blind spots.” Trey rolled his eyes at Kelly’s answer. “Compassion. Sean is fighting a war that I don’t understand. So long as he’s fighting that war and not fighting me, I can have compassion for him. Dad’s problem was that he spent most of his life fighting us instead of his own demons.”

“I’m supposed to have compassion for our father?”

“Supposed to? I don’t know. But you might try it and find out. Add Mama in there, too, while you’re at it.”

“Huh. I’m going to get a second plate.” Trey stood and walked over to the line of food, trying not to notice that he got two scoops of the corn pudding that had always been his mom’s favorite and that he passed up the potato salad his dad had never liked.

When he returned to the table, Max was joining Kelly with her own plate of food. “Not eating with the Kickstarter guests?” Kelly asked.

“I don’t want to sound like an ingrate, but I need a break from being ‘on.’ It’s exhausting,” Max said.

“You don’t look
on,
” Kelly said.

“She’s wearing her interview clothes. Casual enough that no one forgets she’s a farmer, but without the mud stains.” Trey ignored the elbow to his side. “I recognize the outfit from when she interviewed Sean.”

“You probably should’ve worn something nice to sign the mortgage papers,” Kelly said, though the smile on his face made it clear he was teasing.

“I know, but I didn’t want to look too flush. Besides, if I showed up to this party in a skirt, I would’ve been bombarded with people asking me to point out the farmer. Even the people who come to the farmers’ market wouldn’t recognize me. Hank called my outfit farmer chic, though I’m not even sure he knew what chic meant,” Max said with a laugh.

Trey put down his fork. “Where would my father learn a phrase like
farmer chic?
”

“Well,” Kelly said, “I think he learned
chic
because of me. There was a six-month period when Dad was trying to understand gay culture until I told him to knock it off.” He made a disgusted face. “It was just weird and wrong and full of stereotypes that don’t apply to me.”

Max laughed. “Oh, he must’ve kept that learning experiment a secret from me. Though Hank did spend about a year reading up on modern organic farming techniques and emailing me articles. Some of it was helpful. Most of it I already knew, but it was sweet.”

Trey scooted back to the edge of his chair as Kelly and Max reminisced about his father’s misguided attempts to broaden his mind. Finally, he interrupted. “I can’t imagine my father doing any of this.”

“Oh, Hank wasn’t
good
at it, or even comfortable with it. But he’d made a commitment with himself to learn and he was sober enough to try to stick with it. It’s just that whenever he was trying on a new skin, he walked like his pants were too tight.”

“Some of it stuck, though,” Kelly said quietly.

Max shot a look at his brother. “Yes, some of it did. He built the chicken coop because he preferred the eggs I brought home from the market, though he couldn’t bear the price of them. And—” Max paused and Trey felt the pressure of her hand on his leg “—he was starting to check out books on education from the library. He had just returned one from that former head of D.C. schools.”

Her last sentence distracted him from the hand on his thigh. “My dad went to the library?”

“Dad was all kinds of surprising in those last years. You never knew what you were going to get out of him, good or bad.”

Trey put his hand under the table and grasped Max’s. She gave his a squeeze, which was comforting, but didn’t help realign his life with a world where his father went to the public library.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

T
HE
TIKI
LAMPS
provided so little illumination, Max wondered if they’d be better off working without them and using only the stars and moonlight to guide them. But they’d provided enough light to see Trey raise his brows at that suggestion, so the lamps stayed lit. Max leaned against the last folding table still standing, winding fairy lights around her arm while Trey carried chairs to the barn. The party had been blessed with crisp though not cold November weather, but the wind carried the tangy smell of a storm. The tents would join the chairs and tables in the barn until the rental company retrieved them. The fairy lights would be packed away in the attic, joining the Harris family crap neither Trey nor Kelly had removed yet.

Trey will at least have to come back for that
. Only he wouldn’t. The man she loved could drive to D.C. and make Kelly return to the farm for the boxes. And since she owned the land she was standing on, he wouldn’t continue to drive five hours after work on Friday to “check up on his property.” His excuse and his chain had been signed away today in an office with uncomfortable furniture and cheap art on the walls.

She’d let herself forget the less-welcome consequences of owning the farm during the celebration. Now with just the two of them left, those consequences were all she could think on.

They were going to walk into the farmhouse, have sex and then he would drive away. And even if he came back occasionally, this relationship would still have no future.

Trey was walking toward her, the moonlight and the tiki lamps casting shadows that danced across his face. No matter that the light was dim, Trey’s smile was bright. “You’re leaning against the last table.” His eyes twinkled. Close up, she saw that the muscles of his face were relaxed and there was no evidence there had ever been uncomfortable lines on his neck. Watching their relationship slowly dissolve across the two hundred and fifty miles between Durham and D.C. couldn’t be the only outcome to their situation.

His arm slipped around her waist. Warm, strong and about to exit her life. “We can’t go to bed until all the tables and tents are put away. Your rules—” a playful kiss on her lips interrupted his words “—not mine.”

She put the bundle of fairy lights in the box and stood. Trey hadn’t stepped back, so when she was on her own two feet, she was also in his arms. It didn’t matter that there was one layer of thick woolen sweater and one layer of thermal-lined sweatshirt between them, her skin remembered the feel of his body against hers. She tilted her face up to his and kissed him. His lips were warm. Then he tilted his head and the cool skin of his cheek brushed hers. She wanted to ignore the coming storm and the tents and go inside.

She wanted to stay out here forever so that morning never came.

His tongue tickled the edge of her lips and she met it with her own. Slippery, wet and warm in blissful contrast to the dry chill of the night air. He tightened his arms around her, pulling her close against him. She thrust her hands under his sweater, rubbing the cotton of his shirt against his skin, creating friction and heat under her hands. He moaned and shivered when she finally yanked his shirt out from his pants and touched skin to skin.

She wasn’t ready to be finished when he pulled away from her. He reached his hand up and brushed some of her flyaway hair from her face. “It’s warmer inside. The tents can be left until morning.”

She dragged her hands out from under his shirt and smoothed his sweater back down. “No.” Responsibility and reality were unwelcome. “I’m not convinced the weather will hold.”

He nodded, stepping back far enough for her to grab the box of lights and slip away from him.

She didn’t trust herself to find the courage to ask him to stay for her. But the longer the night lasted, the more chances she had to dig up some bravery. As she walked to the farmhouse to deposit her box by the door, the sounds of table legs being folded punctuated the conversation running through her head.

“Trey, would you move to North Carolina, back to the farm, to be with me?”

“But I have a good job, one that I care about, in D.C.”

“But I just bought this farm. I can’t move.”

“But I hate the farm.”

“But you love me.”

At least she thought he did. He’d driven down here almost every weekend to be with her as she worked to buy the farm. He’d supported her. He’d encouraged her. And he hadn’t done all of that just because he wanted to be rid of the land.

Her right foot hit the step and she fell forward, her box of fairy lights bouncing in her arms before sliding out of her grip and onto the porch. Luck was with her tonight because the box landed top up and she didn’t have to spend the rest of her evening rewinding strings of lights.

“Everything okay?” Trey called from across the lawn.

“I’m fine,” she called back. “I just stumbled on the steps.” Only she was lying; she wasn’t fine. She was driving herself crazy with her fear over asking one simple question. A no would hurt, but she’d survive. She would have her farm to absorb all her energies and she’d live to see another day. At least she’d know.

As they took down the tents and made small talk, all the reasons she shouldn’t put her heart out there danced through her head.
Don’t even try. You’ll only fail. You’ll lose what you have now. It’s not worth it.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Trey asked again as they were stuffing the last tent into its bag. “You seem...unfocused.”

“I’m tired. And today’s been pretty emotional.”

He put the bag on the ground and stepped closer to her, wrapping his arms around her. Her body melted into his, only stopping from being a loose puddle on the ground by the resilience of her skin. “Tomorrow you’ll wake up on your own farm with money in the bank to make it into the farm you’ve always wanted.”

She chuckled into his sweater, then lifted her face to his. “I know. And that’s a pretty emotionally exhausting thought.”

“Then let’s get all this stuff put away and get you to bed.” His kiss was sweet. “Maybe we’ll even sleep.”

After they’d moved all the tents into the barn, they walked back to the farmhouse hand in hand. The backyard looked so empty without all the tents and people celebrating. She had enjoyed sitting at the top of the rise and surveying her fields. Hell, this was her land. If she wanted to build a patio at the top of the hill and sit on a chair with a beer after work and look out over her vegetables, she could. And that, more than anything, gave her the courage to ask Trey, “Will you move to North Carolina? To be with me?” as they crossed the threshold from the porch to the living room.

“I’m sorry?” he replied. She didn’t know if it was too dark to read his expression or if he didn’t have one. She also didn’t know which of those options was better.

“Me. To be with me. On the farm. I can’t move to D.C.” She laughed at the irony of it all. “You see, I just bought this farm from the man I love because he didn’t want it. But I want him. And I come with the land.”

“You’re tired.”

She flipped the lights on and saw his expression for the first time. Fear. She hadn’t expected that. He sighed when he caught her looking at him. His deep breath seemed to go on forever.

He was going to say no. She’d known he was going to say no when she asked, but she’d hoped... But she wouldn’t have been able to look herself in the mirror tomorrow morning, or the next day, or the next if she hadn’t asked. “I am tired. But that doesn’t change what I’m asking. Or why.”

Ashes lifted his head. His tail pounded the floor in greeting, but he didn’t get up. Her old dog had tried to stay at the party all night; he’d only gone to bed when she’d noticed him falling asleep while standing and she’d put him in the house. She wished she could embrace exhaustion with the same dead man’s flop as Ashes. Instead, she sat on the couch, her body ready to be catatonic and her mind racing around in circles. From the red shooting through Trey’s eyes and the ginger way he arranged himself on the couch, Max wasn’t the only tired one.

Neither of them spoke. They just looked at each other. Tension simmered, despite the drafts that prevented the room from getting hot. Ashes moaned from his spot on the floor. The silence reigned until the dog fell asleep, then the soft woofs and twitches of his dreams were all that kept the room from feeling like a tomb.

Just when she thought they would spend the rest of the night in ghostly silence, Trey scrubbed at his face with his hand and then spoke. “Do you know what you’re asking me to give up?”

Her nod disoriented her balance and all her body wanted to do was fall asleep. But she’d asked the question now and she would get her answer now, even if all she wanted to do was curl up into a ball.

“I’ve worked incredibly hard to get where I am. My job is important, it pays well and I enjoy it.” Not willing to try nodding again, Max blinked her understanding. “You’re asking me to give that up. To move down to my dad’s farm.”

“It’s not your dad’s farm anymore.”

“Every day of my childhood, I ate dinner at that table in the kitchen. My mother would come home from work, make ‘real food’ if we were lucky enough, and my dad would have a beer. And if we
were
having ‘real food,’ it was only because that was my dad’s first beer of the night. More often, my dad already had a pile of cans building for the day and we were eating biscuits for dinner because he was drinking the grocery money.”

Max blinked again. The tears were coming. If she moved her head, they’d slosh around in her eyes and the tight ball that was her heart might break into a million pieces.

“That same table is still in the same kitchen. And not even the new couch or the new paint colors can hide that it’s the same house. You live here now and there are crops growing in the fields instead of weeds, but that doesn’t change what this place is.”

Being fairly certain of Trey’s answer ahead of time didn’t make it any easier to hear. And she had known. She had known and had asked anyway. She took a deep breath before sobs choked her. Her tears were hot as they rolled in streams down her face. “It’s
my
farm. It’s me.”

The sadness on Trey’s face only made his answer worse. “I know. I’m sorry.”

He sat in silence. Max sat blubbering. Too tired to keep herself under control, her sobs were messy and loud. Fragments of her heart floated around her body, tearing muscle and bone as they brushed past. She’d had a choice of keeping the farm or keeping Trey and she’d chosen. Just because she wouldn’t choose differently didn’t mean she was happy with her choice right now.

The couch shifted as Trey stood and his footsteps retreated from the living room. He returned with a box of tissues. “Thank you.” She had to cough the words out. She blew her nose. Once. And again. The pile of tissues grew to the size of her hand. Then her two hands fisted together. In the morning, she would be dry as a bone. Her broken heart was going to squeeze her dry.

But there would be no regret in the morning. She would wish she hadn’t been so tired. She would wish his answer had been different. But she wouldn’t wake up and regret having the guts to risk it all and ask him to stay.

She pulled one last tissue and wiped her eyes.

“Are you done?” When he had returned with the tissues, he’d sat next to her on the couch. Closer and also farther than he’d ever been before.

She nodded.

“I have to drive back to D.C. in the morning.” She knew that. And that he wasn’t coming back. “I’m going to bed. Are you coming?”

“I’ll be there soon.” The residue of her tears made her words halting, but she said them. Even though she knew they were a lie. Trey nodded, then left the living room for her bedroom. After she heard her bed creak, she let her head fall back on the pillow and closed her eyes.

* * *

T
REY
KNEW
THE
instant he woke up that Max wasn’t in bed next to him. He’d lain awake for what felt like hours, waiting for her to come to bed. Knowing she wouldn’t. Maybe he should have said he would sleep on the couch and prodded her to go to bed.

Maybe she shouldn’t have asked him for the one thing he couldn’t give her.

The temptation for his mind to scream,
If you loved me, you wouldn’t ask me for this
nearly overpowered rationality. The problem with his self-pitying call was that his mind was also yelling back,
If you loved her, you’d move.

Almost every morning he’d woken up in this bed, Max had gotten up earlier than he had and emptiness had greeted him. But those mornings had felt full of promise. But like everything else about this farm, this empty bed was nothing but empty promises.

He’d never promised her. She’d never promised him. And here they both were, disappointed. He preferred anger; regret was a harder emotion to get out of bed with. He swung his legs over the edge and put on his clothes, prepared to hike the fields to find her.

He didn’t have to look that far. Max was where he’d left her, on the couch in the living room, only at some point in the night she’d lain down. She was curled up in a tiny ball—out of sadness or for warmth, he couldn’t tell. He covered her with one of the blankets off the recliner. Then he walked to the kitchen with the intention of making himself coffee, but he couldn’t get past the doorway. Memories of childhood mornings he’d stood in this very doorway skimmed his mind. He waited for the anger to come. When it failed him, he took a deep breath and pushed his blood to boil. He concentrated on the fear of being a little boy. On nights of hungry bellies, Kelly trying desperately to be noticed, while at the same time trying to hide his secret. On his mother coming in after working two shifts and having to clean the bathroom because his father didn’t do women’s work. On the smell of alcohol.

The dam holding his anger back broke and the rage soared through his body in a familiar rush of adrenaline and self-righteousness.
You are making the right decision,
his anger told him.
You could never be happy in this house.